


Golem

by Switchbladesis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Novakfest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2011-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 23:58:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Switchbladesis/pseuds/Switchbladesis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in Season 5. <i>Jimmy remembers hearing stories about golems during a summer in Prague</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Golem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twoskeletons (Las)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Las/gifts).



> Many, many thanks to lj users callowyn and gabby_silang for betaing this for me, and to callowyn for letting me bug her while I was writing this. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

Jimmy remembers hearing stories about golems during a summer in Prague: clay creatures brought to life by holy men. Activate the sigil and the spirit flies in. A savior, a protector, a servant for humanity in the name of God. It would remind Jimmy of Castiel, except Jimmy's body hadn't been empty when Castiel found it.

If an angel of the Lord hadn't hijacked his body, Jimmy probably wouldn't be remembering Prague. It had been two weeks in the summer after his sophomore year. If he’d bothered to think about it at all, his memories would have been of helping Jacob smuggle absinthe back into the States, the long, slim thighs of the Italian women sharing their hostel, spending all of his money on calling cards and getting the time difference wrong, waking up Amelia at three in the morning and spending two hours on the phone with her anyway. But Jimmy’s got more time to think about these things these days, wander through bits of memory and tease out things he’s mostly forgotten. Castiel doesn’t put him to sleep anymore-Jimmy isn’t sure if it’s because he can’t or just doesn’t bother. His grace feels different, more a heat lamp than a comet, and the sight and sound of his wings, like a thousand birds taking flight is no longer so overwhelming that Jimmy can’t concentrate on anything else. He looks out and tries to pay attention to what is going on outside of himself, but the images no longer make sense. Castiel does not see the way humans do, and he is in control.

Currently, they are continuing Castiel’s search for God. The more desperate he becomes, the more impossible the landscape; the less Jimmy can understand of the scale and time and space. It's twilight at two o'clock. Sand dunes and pine trees tear deep shadows into the frozen lake below. He can only feel a slight chill, but he knows it's cold, colder than he's ever been before, from the way his breath condenses and each droplet (invisible to any human eye except for his) forms and slowly freezes with a tiny crackle. The wind blows sand and snow into Jimmy's eyes and yet Castiel does not let him blink, simply banishes the grit away and continues to use his senses with impossible precision, inspecting every grain of sand on a 90 foot dune. The sound of a million wordless prayers filter through, unanswered, attempting to find heaven through this earthbound angel. Jimmy's brain stretches to try and comprehend the grotesque amalgam of images, the sounds and smells he receives under Castiel's direction, but it's too much, and Jimmy is afraid that he will break under the effort. It's much easier to concentrate on himself, his thoughts and memories from before. Those are still a human size.

His mind wanders back to the golem again, of angels and the radio ad salesmen they possess. Or don't.

"Anna's vessel never had a soul in it," Jimmy says out loud, for variety more than anything else. There’s no real sound, his vocal cords do not move, but his mind supplies an internal echo when he projects his thoughts to Castiel. He’s become the sort who enjoys hearing the sound of his own voice. Amelia would never let him hear the end of it.

"No." It’s the first thing that he has said to Jimmy in months, but Anna is still a new loss for Castiel, one that he regrets.

"If you could create vessels whenever you wanted, why possess people at all?" _Why possess me_ , Jimmy rages, silent even within his own head. He wonders if Castiel can still feel the question from him.

"Anna could recreate her old form because it was previously in existence. Angels do not have the power to invent new beings, that's the realm of God and men.”

Jimmy thinks on this for a while. "Could you get them to create a copy of me?" The idea of another one of him out there, Castiel still wearing his body turns his stomach. But he would be done, at least. Maybe he wouldn’t have to look at it.

"I doubt it. She was always able to convince them to do things I could not."

If Jimmy still had control of his nose, he'd snort. Instead, they stand in silence for a while as sand and snow swirl around them. When Castiel speaks, he's hesitant. "I could let you go, if you wanted."

"Let me go where?" If there's anything this experience has taught Jimmy, it's to find out all the details before you say yes.

"To Heaven." Castiel rushes to explain himself. "You don't need to be involved anymore. You'd be happy there.” Castiel crosses Jimmy’s arms and shifts his body awkwardly in the snow. Jimmy isn’t sure if he should be relieved or disturbed to find out that the angel is picking up more human mannerisms. “I can't protect you anymore. You don't need to feel all of this."

Something violent awakens within Jimmy, claws at him to fight. It's not as if he's helping anyone here, not the Winchesters’ attempts to avert the apocalypse or Castiel's search for God. He remembers when he used to see Him in the city's light, had the true name of God written on his tongue and filtered in every word he spoke. That was before he could see glaciers, gone for millennia, covering the land around him. Before he'd seen souls and demons and felt an angel's grace. But still, he rebels against the suggestion, against ceding himself fully to this foreign thing, letting it wear his face and clothes without him. Castiel withdraws, gaze turning outwards, before Jimmy could even put his thoughts into words.

Castiel never brings it up again, but the conversation stays with Jimmy, through the taste of meat and blood, through visits to impossibly red lakes and dried seabeds from the Paleozoic, then long after Castiel's condemnations of his Father ring in his ears.

___

 

Castiel’s in the sleep of the completely wasted, and Jimmy’s stuck with his hangover. Of course. An experimental attempt to open his eyes lets in a too-bright light that shatters all attempts to concentrate, and he shuts them quickly.

Wait.

The realization forces his eyes open again in surprise and, experimentally, he blinks, licks his chapped lips and wiggles his toes. Nothing too ambitious--he doesn’t want to wake up Castiel- but even these small movements feel like revelation. An involuntary grin takes over his face, his lips slipping back into his expressions after such a long period of misuse, and he can feel his nose scrunch up over the pounding in his head.

Moving his body after so long feels strange, heavy and solid like he's made of clay. His spine pops softly as he rolls his shoulders, and muscles he never knew he had cry out from abuse. But he's in control again. Castiel is getting weaker. Who knows how long ago Jimmy would have been able to do this, if he'd tried. Could he learn to ignore this wounded, weakened thing inside him, reunite with Amelia and Claire and continue his life? Would Castiel fight him? Could they learn to share?

He forces his eyes open long enough to look around. Without Castiel's influence, everything looks static and flat. There's no hint of the future, no whisper of souls around him. He can feel Castiel’s grace spark and twitch in its sleep. It reminds him of Claire, when she’d climb into her parents' bed after a nightmare. That had been years ago. It’s hard to think about how much she must have grown since then. She’s twelve, thirteen now?—goddamn. Despair and anger radiate from the sleeping grace. Jimmy sighs, relishing in the feel of damp breath over dry lips and then, as if shocked, quickly splays his too-heavy limbs outward, wrist and elbow limply hitting the wall beside him. All of his muscles tense as Castiel wakes.

The next time Castiel sleeps, Jimmy takes control again. But the twitching and flexing of limbs without purpose feels more constraining than freeing without hope of achieving anything more, so he withdraws.

__

 

Jimmy is deep in a memory of Claire, three, on the shores of Lake Michigan when he hears the sound of Castiel's voice. “This sigil; it’s designed to banish an angel-doing this will try to rip me from this vessel. I think I can hold on to the body. But I'm not strong enough to keep your soul with me.”

Jimmy struggles to think of the context for this, but he's now an expert at blocking everything out. It’s become easier as Castiel dims, as the images that flow through Jimmy’s eyes become duller. These days, he can almost pretend he’s asleep again. He remembers fights, screaming, Castiel's anger and betrayal making his grace burn brighter. None of this seems extraordinary. His knuckles ache. Castiel must not have bothered to heal them.

“Are you asking for my permission to kill me?”

“I’m sorry,” says Castiel. Not asking, then. Jimmy considers trying to take control again, just long enough to stop him. But Castiel's despair is infectious in a way that his self-righteousness never was. Jimmy just wants to rest, to wake up with Amelia’s warm weight beside him and listen to the sounds of Claire stomping around downstairs, keeping a professional ear out for ads on the radio playing over the low swish of traffic outside. He thinks that might be his paradise.

Castiel feels tense: hopeless and battered but still bracing for a fight. Jimmy doesn’t have it in him anymore. “It’s okay,” he says, the words seem to echo within his body, all around him. It’s not, not by any reasonable definition. But it will be over soon. He doesn’t have to be around to see the end of it.

He’s a golem in reverse. Activate the sigil and the spirit flies out.

Castiel holds Jimmy’s hand steady as he drags the blade against his chest.


End file.
